Still Life with Summer Sausage, a Blade, and No Blood (East Texas, 198_)
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I remember, we walked (we didn’t walk) from the farmhouse to the store in Palestine, (we drove the truck, got out, went in) Texas. The storefronts hadn’t changed since my father was a child. He grabbed saltines from the bin (he bought a box) and he bought some sausage. We walked (yes, then we walked) around town as we ate (he shared). He gave me some summer sausage, cut with his pocket knife. I pulled the pieces from the point of the blade. I knew (knew) nothing would happen (though he was silent) to alter this memory. We were together in Texas and we ate and walked in silence and it felt like smiling, like skipping, like saying, “Daddy” and him not minding, not minding at all. [End Page 114]
Vievee Francis, a native of Texas, is author of Blue-Tail Fly (Wayne State University Press, 2008), her first collection of poems. Her poems have also appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Margie, Detroit’s Metro Times, Callaloo, and other periodicals. She lives in Detroit, Michigan.
